Breathing space comes from unexpected sources, sometimes.  While Damma was busy dying, I was running an external accreditation visit, planning the next one, selling my house, looking for a new house, and trying to find ever more creative solutions to the University's deepening financial woes.  All of which made for a fairly stressed Silver.  Then in the same week Damma died, HT was made redundant, and I had to go to Lincoln to help Mum out and try not to add to HT's woes by insisting we discuss our home buying plans before he was ready to breathe.  Which was difficult, but fortunately, he's a patient man.

When I came home from Lincoln earlier than planned, I took a day to myself - I still went back to work earlier than I had thought I would, but I just needed a day in my own head, putting myself to rights.  So I spent a day in the shed.  Sewing.  I wanted to see what I could do with only a little bit of colour.  Most of my stuff is a busy swirl; it's a struggle to know where to rest your eye and while the colours work well together, I wanted to try a bit of quiet.  Some pieced cotton peace.  So I cut a large chunk off the end of the roll of white fabric that stands in the corner of the shed, and I used up some scraps of colour from various works in progress, and I put the two together.  With a lot of white and very little colour.  And it was OK.  Then I needed to make a back.  And I like the back of my quilts to have something about them, so a bit more colour went into that.  Just a little bit.

And before you know it, a quilt sandwich was all basted and ready to go.  But if it's all plain, and white, what do you do with the quilting?  I'm not ready to embark on trapunto (see the bottom of this page for a picture) or whole cloth quilting (picture here) so I decided to try some free machine quilting.  Circles.  Squirly, whirly, scribbly circles, like doodling with a needle.  At high speed.  You drop the feed dogs on the machine, so the fabric doesn't move through automatically, so you have to move the fabric manually through the machine, at an even speed, and keep the needle moving at an even speed.  And keep breathing. It's harder than it sounds.  Particularly the breathing part.  The idea is (well, the idea kind of is) to achieve a state of zen-like calm and make pretty patterns and interesting textures on the fabric.  White thread on white fabric.

It's shaping up OK.  It's a long time since I've done it, and it is difficult to keep the fabric moving at an even speed and the needle going fast enough.  And I'd forgotten how difficult it is to move a decent sized quilt (it's only baby sized.  Or possibly small lap sized.  But it's bigger than the throat of my sewing machine) through the machine.  It hurts.  My neck hurts, my shoulders hurt, my hands hurt.  But it's looking pretty.  And by the time I've finished this quilt, I'll be good at it again, and then the next one I do - which will be large, and red, and rich, and glorious - well, that one will be gorgeous. 

I have plans.  I have plans for the border of this quilt, and plans for the design of the next one. 

But most importantly, while my little brain is fuzzing with plans for the quilts, it isn't thinking about anything more difficult or more unpleasant.  It's hard work - two hours per night to quilt a section 6" x 12" - and it's physically difficult.  But it's breathing space.  I don't know if it's any good (but the next one will be).  And it's zen-like calm.